Quentin sprang to his feet and bowed respectfully. "Master Gerard is but absent for an hour or two," he said; "shall I run to the Cathedral and fetch him?" "Nay," the lady answered, sinking into the high-backed chair in the corner, "it is cool here, and we will await him. Ranulph, come look at this coffret. I maintain that the fairies teach these people to work in wood as they do. Saw you ever the like?" The troubadour bent over the just-begun carving. "This is no boy's play; this is good work," he said. "You have the right notion; the eye and the hand work together like two good comrades." "My lord shall see this when he comes. I like the work." She touched the cheek of the apricot with a dainty finger. "Where did you get the pattern?" Quentin looked down, rather shyly; he did not feel sure that he would be believed. "I had no pattern," he said. "I remembered one that Master Gerard made for a great house a month since--" "And so do I!" laughed the lady. "Now I know where I saw that border. Therefore, not having the copy before you----" "You invented this variation. Upon my word, the race of wood-carvers has not come to an end," laughed the young man. "I think that his Royal Highness will like this coffret well." [Illustration: "'UPON MY WORD, THE RACE OF WOOD-CARVERS HAS NOT YET COME TO AN END'"] All in a flash it came to Quentin who this was. Some time before he had heard that the Princess Margaret, daughter of the French King, was in the city, with her husband, Prince Henry of England. It was for the Prince that Master Gerard had made that other chest. Things linked themselves together in this world, it seemed, like the apricots and blossoms of his design. "Finish the chest," said the Princess after a pause. "I will have it for a traveling casket. Can you carve a head on the top--or two heads, facing one another, man and woman?" "Like this?" asked Quentin, and he traced an outline on the bench. It was the lady's beautiful profile. Master Gerard came in just then, and Pol came slinking in at the back door. The next day Quentin was promoted to Pol's place, and finished his chest in great content and happiness. It was the beginning in a long upward climb to success. THE CAGED BOUVEREL I am a little finch with wings of gold, I dwell within a cage upon the wall. I cannot fly within my narrow fold,-- I eat, and drink, and sing, and that is all. My good old master talks to me sometimes, But if he knows my speech I cannot tell. He is so large he cannot sing nor fly, But he and I are both named Bouverel. I think perhaps he really wants to sing, Because the busy hammer that he wields Goes clinking light as merry bells that ring When morris-dancers frolic in the fields, And this is what the music seems to tell To me, the finch, the feathered Bouverel.